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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) (SPOILERS) It can definitely be a positive
to approach a picture with lowered expectations. I could quite easily have
skipped JK Rowling’s self-penned Fantastic
Beasts and Where to Find Them on the big screen, as I did the latter five Harry Potters. While I’ve never been a
devotee of the series, I’ve never had much against either, and a few of them (The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Half-Blood Prince) I was even rather
impressed by. But there was a nagging feeling that, whenever I caught up with
the latest instalment, they were foremost intended for devotees of the books, dutifully
faithful and lacking the necessary flair and individuality to become truly
cinematic affairs in their own right. At this point, the Fantastic Beasts franchise has no such encumbrances (even if it
looks to be weighed down with Potter
lore subsequently, much as Lucas’ prequel trilogy was), and it benefits
enormously. It also benefits from an array of top-flight talent i…

Wild at Heart (1990) (SPOILERS) 1990 was a banner year for all
things David Lynch. In April, Twin Peaks
began, exposing him to a far wider audience than he had probably envisaged, and
a month later Wild at Heart premiered
at the Cannes Film Festival, going on to win the Palme d’Or. Sometimes the
recipients of the award are richly deserved, sometimes it’s a case of “What
were they thinking?” and certainly, the film was greeted with as many boos as
cheers when victory was announced. Controversy followed in its wake, agitating
critics over its sex and violence. While I was (and am) a cheerleader of Twin Peaks, I can’t say I was ever that
wild about Wild at Heart. I found it
distinctive and fitfully inspired, but in general I didn’t vibe with the
adulation it received. As such, this is the first time in several decades I’ve
revisited the picture, and even given my non-committal response then, I have to
say it hasn’t stood the test of time.

Hotel Room (1993) (SPOILERS) In terms of visual flourish and
scope, Hotel Room couldn’t be more
different from David Lynch’s previous couple of features. Even in comparison to
his two prior TV series. This trio of shaggy dog stories, centring on the Railroad
Hotel at different intervals in its history, is theatrical in its minimalism,
consisting mostly (in the two Lynch-directed segments) of two or three-handers.
Barry Gifford, the writer of the Lynch episodes, fully gets on board with the
eccentric Lynch quality, but it’s channelled into something for more verbalised
and so less stylistically provocative. As such, it’s interesting that the most
fully-fledged of these, Blackout,
which is therefore in theory the least Lynchian, is the most satisfying. 1.1: Tricks Set in September 1969, Harry Dean Stanton’s
Moe takes prostitute Darlene (Glenne Headly) to Room 603. But, before he can get
up to anything you’d rather not see Harry Dean Stanton get up to, his associate
Lou (Freddie Jones) arriv…